By Paschal Norbert
VATICAN CITY, APRIL 16, 2024 (CISA) – Pope Francis has appointed Fr Martin Banga Ayanyaki, O.S.A., the regional vicar of the Order of Saint Augustine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Buta, the Holy See Press Office announced on April 15.
The diocese of Buta has been vacant since May 2021 when 66-year-old Bishop Joseph Banga Bane resigned in a surprise move that shook the local Church due to the secrecy around his departure from the episcopal see he had shepherded since 1996.
With this appointment, Fr Martin Banga Ayanyaki, O.S.A., will become the fourth bishop of Buta since its elevation to a diocese in 1959.
The 51-year-old bishop-elect was born on December 1, 1972, in Dungu, in the administrative province of Haut-Uélé, DRC. After completing his studies at St. Augustine’s Philosophy, and in theology at Saint’Eugène de Mazenod University, he made his solemn profession in Kinshasa as a member of the Augustinians on November 30, 2002, and was ordained a priest on August 28, 2003, in Poko, in the Catholic Diocese of Dungu—Doruma.
Bishop-elect Banga, after his ordination, held the following roles: deputy parish priest in Poko, Catholic Diocese of Doruma-Dungu from 2003 to 2006, advisor of the Vicariate of the Augustinians and parish priest in Poko from 2006 to 2010.
He was also regional vicar of the Order of Saint Augustine from 2010 to 2014, and pastoral collaborator at the Convent of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, from 2014 to 2020. He was awarded a doctorate in Sociology from the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome in 2020.
Since 2022 he has been serving as the regional vicar of the Order of Saint Augustine in DRC and professor of Sociology and Anthropology at St. Augustine University of Kinshasa.
